Change[..]textmode to 80x25 w. intelfb/inteldrmfb? [Solved]

[rrttdd]

Hi,

besides the problems with the font sizes in Ratpoison, I have a similar problem on the standard console which Salix RP usually boots up.

It seems the kernel always switches the console resolution to 175x65. This is to small for a 12" laptop display.


I spent the last couple of hours trying to solve that. A 80x25 textmode would just be fine.

At first I played around with the "vga=" line in lilo.conf. I found out that the 640x480 modes would suit my needs. I tried vga=0x301.

For a short time it worked during the boot process, but then the resolution was switched back to 175x65.

Examinating the boot messages I found out that vga= obviously only affects the standard VESA VGA driver. Salix uses the Intel driver.
Another information I got is that the using of the Framebuffer/DRMFramebuffer drivers is strictly recommended for the use with X11 (and Ratpoison).

So I'm looking for a configuration which

a) provides 80x25 text mode on the system console (basically the Linux equivalent to the simple "mode co80" command of DOS...)
b) provides full X11 hardware acceleration

In theory, the Intel FB driver just has to switch some display resolutions for that...

I've already tried the following lilo.conf lines:

Code: Select all

append="video=inteldrmfb:mode=640x480-8@60,accel,hwcursor,vram=8"

and

Code: Select all

append="video=intelfb:mode=640x480-8@60,accel,hwcursor,vram=8"

both seem to work for one or two seconds during the boot process, but then I always get the message:

Console: switch to color frame buffer device 175x65

Why the h*ll do kernel and intel driver presume that this is the console text mode I want to have??

EDIT: just tried to add "nomodeset" to the kernel parameters list. This results in loading the VESA driver, which only supports resolutions to 1280x1024 (display resolution is 1400 x1050, so this looks quite bad in Ratpoison)

[gapan]

I'm not sure about lowering the resolution. You definitely need modesetting to start X. But I would try increasing the terminal font size, it would have a similar effect. Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.font and change the "16" in "ter-v16n" to 18, 20, 22, 24, 28 or 32.

[rrttdd]

Thank you, this didn't change the mode, but it fixed that problem for me! Now I can use the console without a magnifying glass...